A Microsoft outage that began on Thursday, 12 November 2026 locked many people out of Outlook email and then spread to Teams, Copilot and other cloud services in dozens of countries. Microsoft says there is no evidence of a cyberattack and has promised a full report on the cause. By Friday, 13 November, email queues were “approaching normal levels,” but full recovery had not been confirmed in the reports I read. Here is what happened, what was affected, what Microsoft has said and what is still unknown.
What Happened
TechCrunch (13 November 2026) says the outage began as a failure of Outlook email and Teams video calls and grew into a company-wide cloud failure. It was first flagged as affecting the United States and the Americas, then spread worldwide as engineers struggled to bring downed servers back. Kentik’s Doug Madory, quoted by TechCrunch, said traffic was returning after about 18 hours of downtime.
Al Jazeera says users began reporting problems at about 16:00 GMT on Thursday. Within about an hour, Downdetector had reports from 74 countries and territories. By about 07:00 GMT on Friday, it showed at least 43,000 Outlook problem reports from 72 countries. Al Jazeera says restored servers were failing again on Friday morning in Europe.
What Was Affected
- Outlook and Exchange Online: Hit hardest. Users could not open mailboxes on the web, in apps or on phones, and many delivered emails arrived late, according to Al Jazeera and SecurityWeek.
- Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and Copilot: Disrupted, according to SecurityWeek and TechRadar. Al Jazeera says Teams chats and calls have largely kept working.
- Security and admin tools: TechCrunch says Defender security screening and Intune admin dashboards were hit, which blocked system administrators. SecurityWeek lists Defender XDR.
- Cloud-based Windows computers: TechCrunch says some users lost access.
- Other services: Al Jazeera says services that rely on Microsoft integrations, including some used by OpenAI and Anthropic, were affected. SecurityWeek says some Google Workspace users had trouble reaching their email through Outlook apps.
Desktop Outlook still showed previously downloaded emails, according to Al Jazeera.
Who Was Hit
Al Jazeera says government systems in Singapore and Japan were disrupted, communications at the Supreme Court of the Philippines were affected, and in Australia the intelligence agency and federal police were among those hit. TechCrunch says many industries were affected, including its own email. Microsoft has not said how many users were affected, and Al Jazeera says Downdetector figures are likely an undercount.
None of the reports I read mention Pakistan. If your email or Teams failed, treat it as a possible effect of this outage, but I cannot confirm it for Pakistani users.
What Microsoft Has Said
- No cyberattack: Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s executive vice president for Copilot, Agents and Platform, wrote on X on Thursday that there was “no indication this is the result of malicious or cyber activity,” according to Al Jazeera. Microsoft’s Friday status update said it had “no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident,” according to TechCrunch and SecurityWeek. TechRadar quotes Microsoft as saying: “This was a technical issue not related to cyber or AI / agents.”
- What failed: Microsoft said a large number of servers became unexpectedly unavailable and the rest had to carry the load, though overall traffic had not risen, according to SecurityWeek and Al Jazeera. SecurityWeek says a process that sets up secure connections was overwhelmed, so affected servers stopped handling requests.
- The fix: Microsoft restarted servers, tested a workaround that bypasses the component handling health checks and began rolling back a recent network configuration change, according to SecurityWeek and TechRadar. Al Jazeera notes Microsoft did not confirm the rollback was responsible.
- Delayed email: TechRadar says Microsoft extended the email timeout window to 48 hours so delayed messages would still arrive.
- Apology and report: TechRadar says Microsoft apologised. SecurityWeek says Microsoft promised a Post-Incident Report with the root cause and further steps.
The Cause: What Is Known and Not Known
TechCrunch says the cause had not been disclosed and Microsoft was still investigating. TechRadar’s later update quotes Microsoft as saying the cause was an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced after a recent network change. Microsoft’s own final report has not been published in anything I read, so treat this as an early account, not the confirmed root cause.
Two outside experts quoted by Al Jazeera agree it looks like a technical failure, not an attack. Walter Pasquarelli of the University of Cambridge described a cascade in which failing servers overloaded others and said the evidence does not point to AI-driven demand. Technology analyst Rupert Goodwins called it “very embarrassing” for Microsoft and said Microsoft’s claim of no attack is credible. Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke compared it to the 2024 CrowdStrike incident, a faulty update, after Microsoft told him it did not believe it was a cyberattack.
Not the First Time This Year
TechCrunch says a days-long Microsoft cloud outage in September 2026 was blamed on a “core authentication configuration” issue. Al Jazeera adds that a January Microsoft 365 outage in North America lasted almost 10 hours and that Outlook users were locked out in late August. It also notes major outages at Amazon Web Services in October 2025 and CrowdStrike in July 2024.
Why It Matters
Al Jazeera says the outage adds to European pressure for digital sovereignty and less reliance on US tech providers. It cites France moving government officials away from Zoom. Pasquarelli sees a possible short dip in Microsoft’s shares but no credible European alternative to its office software, and Goodwins expects no immediate revenue impact because of licensing contracts, but possibly a long-term one. These are opinions, not facts.
What You Can Do If Email Is Down
- Check Microsoft’s service health page or its status posts on X before changing settings. If you are not an admin, ask your IT team.
- Do not reinstall Outlook or reset your password because of an outage. It will not fix a server problem.
- Use another way to reach people for urgent matters, such as a phone call.
- After service returns, check your inbox and sent items for delayed or duplicate messages.
- Be careful with emails claiming to fix the outage. Scammers use big outages for phishing. Do not click links or give your password.
These tips are general advice.
What I Could Not Confirm
- The root cause. Microsoft’s Post-Incident Report is not out yet in the reports I read.
- When service was fully restored. TechRadar says recovery was still being completed on 13 November.
- The number of affected users.
- The start time. Al Jazeera says about 16:00 GMT, TechRadar says reports spiked around 12:30 pm ET (about 17:30 GMT), and SecurityWeek’s first Microsoft update was before 3:00 pm ET. These times differ by outlet.
- Any effect in Pakistan.
- The cause as given by TechRadar. It is Microsoft’s early statement, and I could not open Microsoft’s own status page.
SecurityWeek also notes the outage came two days after Microsoft’s November Patch Tuesday, and that a patched Outlook spoofing flaw is known to have been exploited. Microsoft’s advisories have not linked it to the outage, so I make no link either. This is general information, not a technical advisory.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the Microsoft outage start?
On Thursday, 12 November 2026. Reports differ on the exact hour.
Which services were affected?
Outlook and Exchange Online most, then Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Copilot and security and admin tools.
Was it a cyberattack?
Microsoft says it has no evidence of malicious activity and calls it a technical issue.
What caused it?
Not confirmed. Microsoft points to servers failing health checks after a network change and says a full report will follow.
Is it fixed?
By 13 November, Microsoft said email queues were approaching normal levels. Full recovery was not confirmed in the reports I read.
Did it affect Pakistan?
No report I read mentions Pakistan.
Microsoft’s Post-Incident Report should give the confirmed cause, so watch for it.
